Why, “Only God Forgives,” Why?

I feel like I should have seen this coming. The other three Nicholas Winding Refn films I’ve seen, “Valhalla Rising,” “Bronson” and “Drive,” have all featured heavy violence and gore. However, nothing in those films could have prepared me for the unrelenting nihilist depravity of his latest look at the darker side of human nature, “Only God Forgives.”

Ryan Gosling plays Julian, who runs a Muay Thai fight club in Bangkok and is involved with the drug trade, as is his older brother Billy (Tom Burke). One night Billy rapes and murders an underage prostitute, and is in turn killed by her father. This sets off a chain reaction of revenge killings and reprisals, ordered by Billy and Julian’s mother, the merciless Crystal (Kirsten Scott Thomas). Her target is a police Lieutenant named Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm), who facilitated Billy’s killing, and seems to bring disaster on everyone he meets.

Julian is the good son, who initially wants to let his brother’s murderer go, and has a few basic morals operating in his psyche that the rest of his family doesn’t. This small bit of humanity is his weakness, and in the eyes of his monstrous mother, makes him the bad son. And because Julian wants his mother’s approval and because he doesn’t believe he has any other choice, he throws himself headlong down the path of self-destruction in pursuit of Lt. Chang, trying to turn himself into the monster that he fundamentally isn’t.

Like “Drive,” “Only God Forgives” is heavily dependent on mood and atmosphere. The film has several ambiguities in its narrative and is not shy about withholding answers. The visuals are striking, particular the kitchy Bangkok nightlife, the presence of colorful neon lights illuminating various scenes, and setting violent encounters in incongruous settings. A torture scene, for instance, happens in a club full of beautifully dressed women on display, who are forced to witness the brutality in silence.

However, this time the aesthetics aren’t enough to fill in the gaps of the story. The director has claimed that music was a major influence on “Only God Forgives,” and “Drive” owes a lot of its effectiveness to its soundtrack. However, I spent a lot of “Only God Forgives” listening for music that simply wasn’t there. A few major scenes did feature some interesting accompaniment, and one of Chang’s odd quirks is a penchant for singing karaoke, but otherwise I found the music was severely lacking throughout.

And then there are the performances. It’s not easy to watch characters as depraved and vile as this. It’s not just that they kill and brutalize each other physically, but verbally and mentally as well. One of the most disturbing segments occurs when Julian brings a prostitute he’s fond of, Mai (Yaya-Ying), along to dinner with his mother as a date. Crystal savages her with insults from the moment they meet Kristen Scott Thomas does a great job of making Crystal despicable, but not in a way that’s easy to appreciate.

Ryan Gosling is perfectly fine here, once again doing a lot with very little dialogue and lots of physicality. However, there simply isn’t much interesting about Julian or Crystal or anyone else we meet. We get bits and pieces of characters who could be interesting, but it’s not enough for them to actually be interesting. The story has many similarities to Winding Refn’s other films, and I wonder if the difference is that the mysterious invincible killer isn’t positioned as the main protagonist in this film.

And of course we have to talk about the violence, artfully staged, thematically necessary, and yet it still can’t help feeling entirely gratuitous. The fights and killings are so unrelenting that I actually started feeling bored with them about halfway through the movie. Each slaying is more despicable than the last, until they start feeling inevitable, and it almost feels like a mistake when anyone manages to exit a scene with all their limbs intact.

“Only God Forgives” reminded me of “I Saw the Devil,” a Korean revenge film where the shoestring plot felt like an excuse for the director to shock us with all manner of gruesome violence. Clearly “Only God Forgives” is more ambitious, with a more competent character study at its center, yet ultimately it’s not worth sitting through the unpleasant content for the small moments of illumination that the film offers.

It feels like the director has a crossed a line, creating a film that has lost sight of its ultimate aims in order to indulge the obsessions of its creator. I’ve liked what I’ve seen of Nicholas Winding Refn’s work so far, so this worries me. I’m perfectly willing to give him a few more chances, but I’m afraid this may mark the beginning of the director’s own unhappy downward spiral.
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